Our ‘War on Drugs’: Eugenics Without Surgery?

By Erik Roskes

Blogger Erik Roskes asks, 'Is incarceration addiction is tantamount to eugenics without surgery?'

Saying No to Feel-Good Crime Laws Requires Courage

By Julie Stewart

Politicians on both sides of the aisle are talking over-criminalization--but they must overcome serious roadblocks, says Julie Stewart of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. 

Addiction, Drugs and Crime: Transforming Our Strategy

By William D. Burrell

In my last posting on the 40th anniversary of the “War on Drugs, ” I wrote  that we now know a great deal more about the science of addiction. In a follow-up post, I would like to outline a more effective strategy for dealing with the use and abuse of illegal and legal drugs.

Will Other Justice Reforms Join Crack-Powder Sentencing in Law Books?

Last week, Congress corrected what most criminal justice analysts believe was a 24-year-old error, reducing the large disparity between mandatory federal prison sentences for crack and powder cocaine offenses.  Advocates hailed the long-overdue action. Alison Shames of the Vera Institute of Justice called it "monumental on many fronts."

But why did it take a quarter century for Congress to act, and what does that long time lapse say about the prospects of reform on other criminal justice issues?

For some of the answers, The Crime Report went to Eric Sterling of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, who as a congressional staff member helped write the legislation that sent many defendants to federal prison for long terms. "My role in these tragic injustices has been the great tragedy of my professional life, and has pained me for decades,” Sterling says now.

Many people have complained about the legislation ever since it went on the books, in large part because it was racially discriminatory: blacks tended to be the predominant users of crack, which required the same prison term as possessing 100 times the same amount of powder.

Sterling cites three factors that combined to help the fix finally emerge from Capitol Hill. One of them is the fact that crime rates have fallen so far since the crack bill was passed in 1986 that "crime is no longer the urgent issue that it was then." Americans and their legislators are far more consumed with issues like the economy, health care, energy, and the environment. Members of Congress simply are less vulnerable to being contested on what formerly were controversial issues of crime control.

A second factor is the change of control at the White House. President Obama favored changing the crack-powder sentencing law; his two predecessors did not. The prospect that the president will sign a bill makes a big diference in its chances of passsage.

The third factor cited by Sterling is that it was only in the past five years that a coalition worked hard to pass the bill. It includes groups like Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Open Society Policy Center, The Sentencing Project, the American Bar Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the NAACP, the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society, the Drug Policy Alliance, and the Prison Fellowship and the Justice Fellowship.

The last two are particularly significant because they are conservative groups. In fact, the legislation got through only because Republican senators like Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Orrin Hatch of Utah embraced it. (As it was, Republican Lamar Smith of Texas, ranking GOP member of the House Judiciary Committee, opposed it to the end.) Sterling also credits Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) as having been in the first member of Congress to take up the issue. Rangel now is in trouble on ethics issues.

What's next? In the first place, the new bill failed to eliminate the crack-powder disparity, rather reducing from 100-1 to 18-1 the ratio of crack vs. powder required to trigger a mandatory minimum penalty. Sentencing expert Douglas Berman of Ohio State University calls the law "more of a tweak than a big change: and adds that "a lot of the long-term impact will depend on how the U.S. Sentencing Commission makes corresponding changes in the crack guidelines" for judges.

Berman cites a commentary by Chris Weigant in the Huffington Post, headlined, headlined "Cocaine Sentencing Injustice Slightly Lessened," which notes that, " The penalties for crack and powder cocaine are still nowhere near parity."

With Congress not expected to approve much more legislation beyond appropriations bills in its few weeks remaining before hitting the fall campaign trail, it is almost remarkable that the crack-powder bill was enacted. Much other criminal justice legislation has been discussed, and some has got through commitees in either the Senate or House, but there is no certainty that any of it will pass.

One example is the proposal by Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) to create a commission to study criminal justice problems nationwide. It, too, passed the House last week, and has been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but in the full Senate, the opposition of one member can prevent a bill from getting to the floor. Apparently the sponsors are lacking that unanimous consent so far, as they are on a long list of other measures. The quarter century that it took the drug bill to pass may not bode well for quick passage of crime-related bills.

The fact that crime is less of a prominent issue, as advocate Sterling points out,  may have helped the crack-powder bill but is probably hampering other worthy legislation that needs unanimous agreement to make it into the law books this year. Many lawmakers simply don't see the urgency to move on a problem that may not be on the front pages and at the top of their constituents' minds.

New Obama Drug Policy May Take A Year

Three months ago, I wrote here that it was much too early to say what impact President Obama’s election would have on federal drug policy. More clues are emerging, but it is becoming clearer that it may be a full year before things change where they really count in Washington: the federal budget.

We do have a new director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (commonly known as the drug czar): former Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske. Just 12 days after he took office in May, Kerlikowske appeared before a House committee overseeing his agency.
No one can be expected to announce huge departures in that short a period, but Kerlikowske did make a rhetorical shift from the Bush White House when he told the committee that “the Obama administration understands addiction is a disease, and its treatment needs to be addressed as part of a comprehensive strategy to stop drug use.” He said that fewer than 10 percent of those who need treatment are getting it.
Obama did make some proposals to alter federal spending in the fiscal year that starts in October, but by this week—late June—Congress was well on the way to acting on the budget. Kerlikowske mentioned a new $100 million program called “Improving School Culture and Climate,” but that is not much money by national standards.
John Carnevale, a former budget director in the drug czar’s office who also testified at the House hearing, said he welcomes the Obama administration’s rhetorical emphasis—more talk about preventing drug abuse than about trying to stop narcotics from entering the country. Carnevale says, however, that If Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Kerlikowske are serious about changing the focus, they should seek at least to double Washington’s antidrug aid to local areas. “We must go to where the kids are” with more and better school-based programs, Carnevale says.
That and many other initiatives probably won’t develop until Kerlikowske has had a chance to develop the Obama version of the National Drug Control Strategy, which would affect federal spending that starts in the fall of 2010. By then it may be apparent whether the economy will permit allocating many more resources to drugs and a host of other domestic problems.

Obama Will Change Drug Policy, But How?

Barack Obama campaigned for president on a platform of change, but how will that apply to drug policy? Not much specific is known now. Clues are likely to emerge in the next few weeks as important administration figures visit Mexico and Obama drug czar nominee Gil Kerlikowske, Seattle police chief, appears at his Senate confirmation hearing.

It is assumed that the president will take a softer line on drug enforcement than did the Bush administration but what that means in practice is yet to be seen. Attorney General Eric Holder gave a hint when he said that federal drug agents no longer would raid medical marijuana dispensaries that were operating in accord with state laws.

Another issue where change seems likely is the more than two-decade-old disparity in sentencing guidelines involving crack and power cocaine. Obama has opposed the 1-100 disparity in power-crack cocaine quantities that trigger a mandatory minimum prison sentence, but it is not clear how that issue will play out in terms of what the new ratio might be, if not 1-1.

On Mexico issues, the administration has signaled that it will do more on the enforcement side, but can that be very effective against powerful cartels and will it do anything about the large demand for illegal drugs in the U.S. that is fueling the border violence?

Eric Sterling of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, which contends that the war on drugs has “led to a more efficient drug trade and a hugely profitable drug market,” hopes that the administration will rethink the enforcement-dominated federal drug policy. Sterling would like to see the feds delegate more enforcement to state and local prosecutors, for example. In the meantime, even a “different rhetorical approach” that might be taken by Kerlikowske, “would be dramatic,” Sterling believes.

It's a fair bet that the Obama administration will move to increase treatment and limit enforcement, but how soon anything significant will happen is not known. Drug policy is at best a fourth tier issue behind the economy, health care, and foreign wars, and key personnel moves are far from being made

A New Criminal Justice Funding Infusion?

Criminal justice advocates are anxiously awaiting passage of the economic stimulus bill now quickly making its way through Congress. The reason? It could include up to $4 billion for justice system improvement projects. This would be a huge turnaround from December 2007, when Congress without warning deeply slashed the popular Byrne JAG program, which provides aid to states and localities, to a mere $170 million annually from $520 million--a sum that had itself been cut from previous years.

Republicans could still force cuts in the new bill, but the likelihood is that police and other justice system agencies could get a quick infusion of funds. At least one version of the bill could require spending plans within 60 days.

Are states ready to spend this money? Yes, they say. Maine, for example, would use funds to prevent the layoff of 7 agents on its statewide antidrug task force. The state also would fill vacant positions to prosecutor drug and domestic-violence cases, among other things. North Carolina would use money to continue drug treatment courts that would otherwise have to close because of a state funding shortage. It could also use aid to expand the number of delinquency prevention programs, including alternative schools for suspended and expelled students.

On the policing side, both the House and the Senate Appropriations Committee favor spending $1 billion on hiring police officers, roughly 13,000 nationwide.

The National Criminal Justice Association, which represents states and localities in Washington, says that three-fourths of the stimulus money could be used for personnel, which is one of the bill's main purposes. Now the question is how much will be available and when.